BOLD: HOW TO BE BOLD IN BUSINESS AND WIN – The Story of “UMPQUA BANK”

The future belongs to the Bold.  The world is so crowded that only those who have a significant and dramatically different story to tell will grab the attention of customers.

In a world and age when we have come to expect good level of service and product as given, only an exceptional and memorable experience will earn customer loyalty.

Different breed of organizations are now emerging, they succeed because they have courage, confidence or just sheer chutzpah to pursue a purpose beyond profit:  to engage, entertain and educate their audiences, who see their customers and employees as members of a like minded community, who create and administer cult-like following among their brand – both within and outside their organizations – who are not just different, but dramatically different and who push to the extreme the consequences of their dreaded positioning and strategy.  Umpqua Bank is one of the bold brands.

UMPQUA BANK

The self styled greatest bank in the world, passionately believes, it thinks banking should be like a great retail experience and even calls its branches stores to highlight the belief.

South Umpqua State Bank started in 1963 as a small community bank in South Oregon.  Ray Daus took over as President in 1994 when the bank had assets of $140m and employed 60 people.  Under his leadership, the bank grew to more than 180 branches (stores), 2,500 people and over $12b in assets.

Media outlets like Business Week, New York Times, have repeatedly nominated Umpqua as one of the coolest places to work.  Fortune Magazine has included Umpqua on its best companies to work for list, including November 13 in 2008.

Umpqua has positioned itself very successfully as an integral part of the community and more than just a bank.    It encourages its people to work in community and create store formals that provides a place where customers can come and spend time, not just bank.

It has taken it store promise out on to the street through its innovative “handshake marketing”, which promises “something wonderful will happen to you today”.  Its culture infectious and new employees and acquired businesses have been described as Umpqaulized.

The name Umpqua means “raging water” in Native American dialect, an apt description of the turbulence that hit the financial sector in 2008/2009.  But Umpqua culture helped it grow through the difficult years.

Bold Practices

-       Strip all back room operations from stores so that only things people did was to focus 100% on customer experience

-       New hires were recruited from retail companies and they were trained in the complexes of banking and sent to train at places like Riz Carton (a Five Star Hotel) to learn about delivering services that knocks you off your feet.

-       Empowering people – we hire decision makers and empower them to make decisions that will impact our customers as front desk officers.

-       We are part of our community, our over 2,500 employees engage in a volunteer 40 hours a year of their time to non-profit endeavours with focus on youth/education.

-       Measuring the experience – if you are going to centre our organization on customer experience, you have to be able to measure the experience. It’s called return on quality.  Our people are measured as a team and as individual – great incentives for those who do well and recoach/mentoring to upgrade others to maximize service level.

-       With advancement in technology, most people rarely come to banks now a days, as lots of banking could be done on phone or online, but at Umpqua, we try to create a wonderful experience, so that our customer can say “I think I go to Umpqua Bank and have a coffee while I do some shopping online, while am there, I might cash a cheque or make a deposit” – a significant difference created by our core experience.

-       Our bank (store) design format is very unique, we borrow great idea from best retailer and adapt them to our banking environment.

-       Creating a seamless multi-channel experience – ensure the same culture, the same feeling that the customer get from walking into our store or branch is also felt on the web, in all call centres and it must be delivered through all our channels.

-     The Umpqua brand promise – to make your stop at an Umpqua bank the best thing you did all day.

-       Handshake marketing – an example of this is demonstrated in “random acts of kindness” when a Manager of a store down the street may ask the manager of a fast food restaurant to select two tables daily and ask the manager to pay for their meals, that it’s on Umpqua bank.  Such random kindness spread like wild fire – goodwill to the bank.

-       Get in the flow of social media – The biggest thing about social media site like twitter is that the conversation is going on about your company regardless of whether you participate or not, so we decided to participate.  You must participate to resolve issues and ensure positive tweets about us always.

-       As a company, your visions moves from being a project to how we live, breathe and everyone follow suit – culture and brand are the same you cannot have one without the other.

-       Every single employee attends a motivational moment session every day to inspire us on the job.

-       The branches are called stores and the bank advertises for new hires in the retail space (press).

-       Employees are trained in customer service by customer centric organizations like (Five Star Hotel) Riz Calton Hotels.

-       Employees can spend as long time as it takes to satisfy a customer.

-       Any employee can call the president on any issue.

-       Every employee has to answer the phone with “welcome to the world’s greatest bank”.  People who don’t want to do it can’t join the bank.

-       They mystery shop at branches of other banks, they are thinking of acquiring, to check the culture and customer facing operations.  The Bank has successfully acquired or umpquatized 23 other banks since 1994.

Bold Lessons

-       Look outside your industry – Look beyond your industry to study comparators rather than competitors.  They saw what the best retailers were doing and they applied it to financial services

-       Be the Brand – Walk your talk – Create a branded customer experience.  There is only one Umpque, the look and feel of the store, the technology used they way the employee deal with you.  All of these combined together to create a distinctive customer experience that shouts “Umpqua”.

-       Embracing the digital Media – Understanding the power of the internet/social media and using these as a seamless commercial tool with customers.  Mentoring/ responding to tweets, creating business communities and integrating mobile tech are all important aspects – but first and foremost in the service of the store.

Bold HR Policies

-       Umpqua is a brand the understands the importance of the employee experience and works hard to create a culture that supports the service strategy.  Empowering employees to do whatever it take to satisfy customers, encouraging “random acts of kindness”, and daily “motivational moments”, are all examples of a fundamental belief in the power of the people to differentiate a brand.

-       From running advert in the retail space, rather than financial press, to sending new hires for training to Ritz Carton are examples of bold HR practices mirroring the strategy.

-       Umpqua created a change culture – almost cult like – because if recognized that the only way to differentiate in a relatively commoditized area like banking was through the experience its people could deliver.

        So, let’s be bold.

Culled from:  BOLD:  How to be bold in Business and Win, by Shawn Smith and Andy Milligan